Don?t sleep in the sunshine

You all remember the heat and sunburn advisories in July when we were going through a streak of 100-degree days. I certainly remember them, because I interviewed public health officials about the dangers of too much sun. I learned about the importance of applying sunblock not just once but every few hours that you?re outside. And yet, even armed with that knowledge, I still got sunburnt. I?ll tell you how it happened so you don?t make the same mistake I made.

In mid-July I learned that one of my friends from high school would have a birthday party at the end of the month. The plan was to rent a pontoon boat on Big Creek Lake, north of Des Moines and just north of Saylorville Lake. I was excited because I hadn?t been on the water for a few years, and I hadn?t seen some of my friends from high school for quite some time.

I packed a cooler full of fresh fruit and vegetables (my friends will vouch for that) and headed to Des Moines early on the morning of July 30. Most of my friends from Pocahontas High School now live in Des Moines, so we met in the city first and then traveled to the marina. I was in the trail car and I got lost on the way to the marina. My friend Grant, who was driving from Pocahontas, also got lost. He called me on my cell phone and I gave him directions. The only problem was that they were the wrong directions. Somehow or other my directions took me not to a marina but to a dead end on (what I would later learn was) the wrong side of the lake.

I pulled over on multiple occasions to ask the locals which way to go, and they were very helpful. Grant and I made it to the marina in time to gulp down lunch before boarding the pontoon.

The employees at the marina recommended that we drop anchor near the shore if we wanted to swim so that we would be out of the way of the other boats. Big Creek Lake is a fairly shallow lake. At our first stop, we were able to stand on the lake bottom and keep our heads above water. Before jumping in the water, I applied sunscreen to my arms, shoulders and face. In fact, my friends and I talked about how people often forget to put sunscreen on their ears and nose only to later suffer painful burns on those places.

We drove the pontoon all over Big Creek Lake and dropped anchor several times to swim. We were on the water for more than six hours. I remembered those stories I had written about sunburns, so I was sure to apply sunscreen every few hours. Later that night, I discovered that the sunscreen had worked wonders. My shoulders and face were not burnt at all. They were just as pale as ever. It was when I lay down to sleep that I realized that I missed a few spots with the sunscreen. There was one large spot that ran the width of my back starting just below my shoulders and down to my swimming trunks. It was so red that people mistook me for the Nebraska Cornhusker mascot. Somehow I had forgotten that my lower back could sunburn just as easily as my nose and ears.

Sleeping was a rather unpleasant experience for the next few days. I applied aloe vera a few times to ease the pain. Although it was a bad sunburn, it was probably not the worst sunburn I?ve ever had. I went to Acapulco in the fall of 2007 for a weekend getaway when I was studying in Mexico. I don?t remember putting any sunblock lotion on, and I was at the beach for three hours. I couldn?t wear my bookbag for the next few days. Unsure of the proper phraseology in Spanish, I told my Mexican friends the equivalent of ?the sun cooked me.?

Let this be a lesson to everyone who spends time under the sun: apply sunblock frequently, but most importantly apply it to all areas of your body exposed to the sun. In other words, be smarter than I was.